Francesca Gentille

Stephen Braveman

SEXUAL TRAUMA & SACRED RECOVERY FOR MEN with Stephen Braveman, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, AASECT Certified Diplomate of Sex Therapy, Gender Specialist and Tantra Facilitator. He is the author of “Innovative Methods of Treating Patients with Sexual Trauma” a chapter in the book "Innovations in Clinical Practice: Focus on Sexual Health" & "CPR for Your Sex Life: How to Breathe Life Into a Dead, Dying or Dull Sex Life.”

In this episode, Stephen compassionately guides us in this tender subject. Clarify whether or not you (or your partner) has experienced abuse. What are the signs of trauma. Uncover the difference between ejaculation and the connective pleasure of orgasm. Recover expanded intimacy. Learn why sacred sexuality is so important to heal from sexual wounds. Discover the 5 Steps of Recovery: Awareness - Therapy - Contribution - Sacred Sexuality - Intimacy.

Transcript

Francesca Gentille

:
Welcome to Sex, Tantra and

Kama

Sutra:
Bringing You The Soul of Sex. I’m your host

Francesca
Gentille

, and with me today is Stephen Braveman. Stephen is
amazing, multi faceted, an author, a presenter, and also a marriage and family
therapist, diplomat of sex therapy, gender specialist, sacred sexuality
specialist, an active leader in the American Association of Sex Educators,
counselors and therapists, and someone who had developed very innovative
methods of working with sexual abuse survivors. And I’m so delighted to have
you back again, Stephen. Welcome.

Stephen Braveman: Well thank you. It’s good to be back.

Francesca Gentille

:
There’s so many things that we could talk about; your wonderful book, you know
CPR For Your Sex Life, for everyone, the film that you worked on and that’s won
an award, the boyhood shadows; there’s so much. And what I am wanting to go
into today, because you do this so beautifully and unlike anyone else, is that
shadow realm of sexuality; is that that area, and I think especially for our
men. I think there’s an under awareness of the sexual trauma that men carry in
our culture. Would you agree?

Stephen Braveman: Oh absolutely. Men tend to first deny that
they can have any kind of sexual trauma, and then if they do have it they’re
very hesitant to getting help, very hesitant to do any healing around, and they
want, if they do come forward and they want some help and healing around it,
the expect it to happen extremely quick. So it’s not uncommon for me to hear men
say, “Well, you know, been sexually abused. Been suffering with it for, oh god,
30 years. I think I’m ready to deal with it. How long’s this going to take? A
couple weeks?” And I have to point out, “Oh no, no, it takes a lot longer. You
got here, took a long time to get here; it’s going to take a while.” At the
same time though one thing that I do want to definitely encourage men who might
be listening to this and thinking, “Well, you know, that’s partly my issue”, is
it doesn’t take forever. No, and the average, if a man comes forward and works
on their sexual trauma, it usually can be resolved and set behind them in a
couple of years or less.

Francesca Gentille

:
That is very hopeful, considering how long, male or female, but especially men,
may be carrying this until they find the courage and vulnerability to come
forward, to know that, you know, couple years could really turn this around.
That’s doable, you know what I mean? That’s a training in anything, in a
Masters program, to become a chef, anything, it’s going to take a couple of
years, so that’s good to know. And why do you think particularly for me there’s
this hesitancy to even admit that abuse took place?

Stephen Braveman: Well we have a lot of reasons why there’s
that hesitancy. First thing and foremost is that most of the time when a male
is sexually traumatized he is not violently anally penetrated in a rape type of
a situation; it is more coercive, it is fondling, maybe oral sex, it could be
that he’s had sex that feels very nice to him and he doesn’t connect that it’s
inappropriate. And so men are conditioned to believe that sexual trauma means
they’re raped, and “That didn’t happen to me and so therefore I have no sexual
trauma.” They tell themselves those things quite readily. If they do believe
that what happened to them was a form of sexual trauma, they’re also
conditioned to have that macho image thing going on, and so they’re very
resonant to admit it to anybody. Their belief is well, it’s over, they’re a
man, they’re strong, just suck it up and move on, “Whatever doesn’t kill me
makes me stronger, puts hair on my chest; therefore I’m okay.” Then definitleyt
he issue comes up that if they were molested or raped by another male, are they
homosexual? Did the person who perpetrated the crime against them pick them out
of the crowd because somehow they have feminine features or they think they
might. If they were abused by a female, the issue comes up too, “Well am I man
enough to protect myself? How could I admit that I allowed a female, who’s
supposed to be weak and vulnerable in comparison to a man, how could I allow
that woman to do this to me?” What they typically miss is that either they were
just a little boy at the time and they had no say in the matter, or that if it
happened when they were an adolescent or an adult and they went along with it,
that doesn’t mean that it’s okay. Trauma is trauma, whether it can feel good to
the body or not, and that feel good to the body…

Francesca Gentille

:
You know, lets slow that down, ‘cause that feels so important, you know…

Stephen Braveman: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille

:
I just want to slow this down ‘cause there’s so many just amazing things that
you’re bringing up. One is that regardless of whether or not pleasure was
involved, trauma is still trauma…

Stephen Braveman: Yes, absolutely.

Francesca Gentille

:
And, you know, I’ve heard from so many people that this sense of confusion
about, you know, “Maybe I liked it” or, you know, “There’s part of me – part of
me – that had enjoyable sensations, and yet there were other parts of me that
were feeling ‘This is wrong. I don’t want this. This is, you know, I feel
trapped in this or” – as you said, “I feel coerced or, you know, talked into
this when it’s not really my choice”…

Stephen Braveman: Uh huh.

Francesca Gentille

:
And, you know, that feels like such an important piece of this both recognizing
the trauma and then starting a journey of recovery, is this sense of actually
facing, “Even if I had pleasure, it was still abuse”. And what are the, what are
the hallmarks of trauma, because I think people do get confused. They, like you
said, it’s, “Well if I liked it is it still trauma? If it was, you know,
someone of the opposite sex is it still trauma?” How would we know? So for our
listening audience, either the partners of some of our men who wonder, “Did my
partner go through some kind of sexual trauma?” Or for our men that are
listening, that maybe they’re thinking, “Huh, was that traumatic?” So if the
question is in their mind, how do they know?

Stephen Braveman: Well first thing, if we back up and go to
the term ‘abuse’ I think that’s a very important thing to look at because if a
child or adolescent enjoyed it – and well they certainly can, especially male
bodied people can enjoy sexual contact that is still inappropriate by a
different, wrong person, wrong time, wrong age group or something like that,
because the body will respond to touch and if a male especially has any kind of
anal play or anal violation going on, then the prostate gets stimulated, a male
may ejaculate and therefore he think, he thinks he must have enjoyed it and
thinks that if he did enjoy it then he must have been a willing participant. So
therefore, because men – how could men have sex if they aren’t willing because
they have to have an erection… Well first thing, you don’t have to have an
erection to be abused. Second of all, if you have an erection that doesn’t mean
it’s okay. So some of the time when people have had these experiences, how do
they figure out whether it was trauma or not, part of it is to look at the
body, see what the body says. So for example, if a male was abused at a very
early age, even if he doesn’t remember it or he does and think, “Well it was
just fun play with my babysitter. You know, what’s wrong with that”, well then
what we might find is that when it’s, when he’s having sex with somebody he may
not be able to ejaculate without stiffening up. And I deliberately used the
term ‘ejaculation’ there because there’s a major difference for men between ejaculation
and orgasm. If a man knows the difference - knows that the ejaculation is the
body function, the orgasm is a wonderful feeling that permeates throughout the
body, that’s it’s deeper, it’s stronger, it’s very intense. It’s not just, “Ah,
okay. That felt good, I came” – then if I he can distinguish the difference and
he knows that “Oh jeez, I only have ejaculations, I don’t have orgasms”, well
that spells a trauma because we are by nature orgasmic creatures, and if we’re
not having orgasm something’s wrong…

Francesca Gentille

:
What’s the difference Stephen? So an ejaculation, there’s the semen comes out
of the penis. And so how would a man feel if he were orgasmic, if he was in his
orgasmic nature… ‘cause some men may not know, they might be wondering, “Have
I…”, women wonder that too, “Have I had an orgasm? I’m not sure?”…

Stephen Braveman: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille

:
So how would they know? How would that feel? Would they feel it in their whole
body? Would there be a sense of, you know, euphoria or pleasure that maybe
lasts for more than two seconds? What do, could you distinguish orgasmic for
us?

Stephen Braveman: Yes, absolutely. If they have an
ejaculation incidentally it might not even feel good, because sometimes if men
are using cocaine or methanthetamines, have too much caffeine in their body,
what we call the vaso constrictors, that restrict the eurethra, then passing
the semen through is going to hurt, and that’s a good sign you’re not having an
orgasm if it’s hurting. If it feels real good and you feel very complete and if
your whole body may be vibrating, shaking a little bit, maybe like a mini
convulsive type of feeling that’s a good one, really feeling connected and
loved and feeling good about ones self, then you probably had an orgasm and
that can happen without an ejaculation or it can happen with an ejaculation. So
definitely something we teach in tantra for men is how to have an orgasm
without ejaculation, and if they’re doing that then that clearly is very
different. For the average man that doesn’t know the difference, look at does
it last three point five seconds, and “Ooh, there. Good, that’s over. That felt
nice. I’m glad it’s done.” Or is it lasting maybe wave upon wave or minute upon
minute upon minute….

Francesca Gentille

:
You know, that sounds really, really amazing and important distinction,
extremely healing. And I want to talk more about it when we come back from a
break and a word from our sponsors, and I encourage us to support our sponsors.
And we’ll be right back.

Francesca Gentille

:
Welcome back to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing You The Soul of Sex. We’re
here with Stephen Braveman who has so many talents and skill sets as a
clinician, especially around working with sexual abuse survivors, so that’s one
of his talents. And we were talking about how to know whether you’re a
survivor, how do you know if your partner is and how to recover. We’d just
gotten to orgasm and how to really distinguish it, and I’d love to go deeper
into how to heal and how to have it and have more trust and pleasure in our
bodies. But before we do that I want to come back to both our survivors and
perhaps partners. If someone is questioning, if they’re saying to themselves,
“I wonder if I was a survivor. I wonder if I was a sexual trauma. I wonder if
that was abuse. There’s something that feels kind of uggy or incomplete or bad
even if other people say, ‘Ooh, it’s so cool that that happened to you when you
were young’” Does that mean that it actually was trauma, if I’m questioning, if
I’m feeling that something in my sexuality was now limited today?

Stephen Braveman: Well the question whether or not that’s
trauma is very variable because not everybody whose had early sexual
inappropriate contact is traumatized. However, the question whether that was
abuse or not, “Do I feel traumatized”, is a fairly easy one to answer. First
thing, if somebody is questioning it they typically have been abused. One way
to gage that is to see what happens if they see a story on TV or in a movie, a
scene in a movie where somebody’s being raped, if they hear somebody talking
about it, if they see a commercial about childhood abuse and they find
themselves crying, they find themselves feeling more uncomfortable than they
think they should be feeling uncomfortable… So we’re all uncomfortable over the
fact that people are dying around the world of diseases. However if we have a
disease that’s being discussed we may give a very uncomfortable feeling as it’s
being discussed and we know, “Ooh, yeah. Ooh, that’s me.” Well sometimes the
body knows it and the mind doesn’t seem to recognize it such. So if the body is
coming up, if a queasiness is coming up, if there’s a knot in the stomach, if
especially if there’s throat issues, because for most survivors throat issues
are very common because it has to do with telling ones truth and having ones
truth heard. The throat shakra is very connected with that kind of a thing. And
if they wind up choking up, literally choking up while watching or talking
about something like this, then there’s a good possibility. Beyond that we have
some regular symptoms that we look at that most people who have been sexually
abused do display. And it goes on one side or another of a black and white
split. Either they overachieve, they’re workaholics, they’re top of the class,
they’re go, go, go, but they’re avoiding relationships, they’re avoiding
intimacy or they’re very self destructive - drugs, alcohol, can’t keep a job,
have problems in school – these are all very, very common signs. Now if you happen to be a
partner of a survivor, what might you notice? Well you might notice that at
first everything seemed fined and maybe if you solidify the relationship
through either a marriage ceremony or living,
moving in with each other, some kind of situation which you’re saying,
“Okay, now we’re really a couple. We’re committed”, that within the first
couple of years after that commitment happens, then the partner, the person
whose been abused, is very likely to start shutting down sexually. And it might
be a complete shutdown sexually – shutdown with you as the partner of, shutdown
with themselves, no masturbation or it will be in the form of shutting down
with their primary partner but acting out sexually with pornography,
masturbation, having affairs, seeing prostitutes, things like that. So these
are common symptoms. The listeners should know, if you have any one of these
symptoms that doesn’t mean you were abused. We have to see a pattern of these
symptoms before we can say, “Yeah, it sure looks like this person’s been
abused.” And…

Francesca Gentille

:
You know, I want to take a moment to breathe, because this is a lot. It’s a lot
considering the statistics that, you know, forty percent of us were raised in
families that had male or female that had severe emotional, physical and/or
sexual abuse. And what are the statistics that, as the current statistics as
you know them, for men around sexual abuse?

Stephen Braveman: For men the statistics are poor because of
the fact that we don’t know, because so many men won’t talk about it. But the
number that is commonly used is one in six men or more accurately one in six
boys have been sexually molested by the time they’re 18. Another statistic that
we actually do have pretty good knowledge of and we believe is a very accurate
one is that eighteen thousand men daily are being raped in our prisons across
America. Eighteen thousand men a day are being raped. And so it definitely
happens to males. We don’t think it happens to males as much as it happens to
females, but it definitely happens. And it could be the same thing as with
females, it could be some kind of what we might consider a mild form, so maybe
somebody flashed at them. Maybe it was coerced with gifts and bribery and, but
at the same time it felt nice. Maybe a neighbor molested them and whatever
happened with that neighbor was nicer than what was really going on at home
that really stunk. And so the survivors say, “Well that wasn’t that bad.” And
then of course there’s people on the far extremes who are ritually, satanically
abused in cults, people who are taken hostage, are kidnapped and held as a sex
slave for years. It takes on different versions.

Francesca Gentille

:
And you know, I’m going to just invite us to breathe this in, relax the jaw,
relax the belly, breathe it down to the ground. We want to, we want to take in
this information without taking it on. It’s very big; some of us may be
listening may be stirred by this in some way, “Is that me? Is that my partner?”
And we want to feel moved by it, but at the simultaneously release any excess
into the earth - himself, herself, itself – so that we can stay connected to
our bodies, stay connected to our truth, stay connected to our hearts. And in
the next section of this we’ll be looking at recovery; what are the steps,
including the sacred steps, to come back into wholeness, holiness, fullness,
with our heart, body, mind, spirit and aros, after a break from our fabulous
sponsors, and we’ll be right back.

Francesca Gentille

:
Welcome back to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing You The Soul of Sex, with
Stephen Braveman, talking about recovery, the sacred recovery from sexual abuse
for men. And Stephen, what… we talked about that it could be approximately two
years, and what are some of the steps and/or practices that are the partners or
the survivors themselves may want to engage in?

Stephen Braveman: Uh huh. Well first and foremost, typically
survivors need some individual therapy. And unfortunately that’s not
necessarily the starting point for a lot of them. One starting point that is
wonderful that listeners can go out and do right now - even if they don’t have
a therapist, even if they’re not ready to talk to a therapist or find one in
any way, shape or form – is get the book Victims No Longer. Victims No Longer
is by a man named Mike Lew, l-e-w; it was the first substantial book on the
topic, and it’s a groundbreaker and it does give a reality check. So men can
read it or their partners can read it and go, “Uh huh. Mm hmm. Okay, that’s me”
or “That’s him”. Beyond that though, it gives a sense of hope. It talks about
the fact that if one gets into a therapeutic process with it, that they can
move through this stuff. It doesn’t mean that you’re a victim all your life.
You can go on and become what we call a thriver, which is somebody whose moved,
whose done the work, moved on, and know it’s still part of your life, yes;
however it’s no longer driving your life. So in individual therapy we
definitely see if we can get the person ready for group. Group is a wonderful
way for healing and sexual trauma like this, partly because they get to see
they’re not alone, they get to compare notes. So frequently people say, “Well
my story wasn’t that bad.” Well when they get in, they hear that all of it is
bad, that what happened to them, if it caused any kind of harm, it was bad and
the deserve a healing, that can be very groundbreaking for them. One of the
things that we do in our men’s groups that’s very different than a lot of
groups is we get the men very actively involved in their healing, meaning it’s
not okay to just come to group, sit there for two hours a week and talk about
what happened; they need to take some kind of action that actually leads to
healing. So for example a lot of the men in our group helped us put together a
film called Boyhood Shadows: I Swore I’d Never Tell, which Google that and
you’ll find trailers on it and also if you go to my website,
bravemantherapy.com, you’ll see trailers on it, you’ll see articles about it
and interviews about it. In Boyhood Shadows, the men helped us put this
together; they helped us craft it, helped us find a filmmaker, they spoke up
and it was amazing for them. Amazing healing that comes about. That’s not the
only way though, that’s not for everybody. Recently I had a couple guys help me
build a deck in the back of our rape crisis center; that was amazing healing
for them. Sometimes men will talk to their own children about what happened;
that can be really healing. So that’s really healing for the individual person,
and after a year or two of doing therapy most people do feel better and their
self esteem has improved, they’re doing better with their relationships in
life, maybe better at work, maybe they’ve stopped drinking. However they’re not
at that point because it’s important to note that sexual abuse of some sort is
a sexual abuse; there’s a sexual trauma. And so they need to go on and heal
that sexual trauma. One of the best ways of doing that is by attending a tantra
workshop with their loving partner that is specifically geared toward sexual
abuse survivors. In that kind of a workshop we will teach them the basics of
tantra, sacred sexuality and what that means. Very importantly we’ll teach them
how to say yes, how to say now, and we’ll also teach them and their partner how
to, how to ask first. So instead of just grabbing – and of course a lot of
people think men like to be just grabbed, and not so for survivors. Instead of
just grabbing, ask, “May I touch your butt? May I kiss you? Maybe I rub here?”
And at first that’s very, very helpful. After they get used to that with a
partner, they can maybe ask just at the beginning, “Is it okay to touch you
everywhere or anywhere?”, or “What’s on the menu? What’s not on the menu?”, and
leave it at that. But to have that sacred healing and in that sacred healing
the partner really becomes the healer and helps the survivor become their own
healer. Sex can be and is for many, many people a healing event if we allow it
to be. That’s what we shoot for. So when they’re able to have a healthy happy
sex life - as determined by them, not determined by us necessarily what is
healthy and happy - when they feel like they have that and they feel safe with
sexuality, then they’re usually done.

Francesca Gentille

:
So I want to slow that down a little bit and highlight some of these major
points that you’re making about the healing journey, that one part of the
healing is confronting it, even becoming aware of it, maybe reading books or
seeing films. Another part is getting help, going to a professional, whether
it’s in a group situation or an individual therapy. And then another piece is
contributing back, actually in some way transforming or working with our
suffering in such a way that we feel that we’re now able to contribute to making
the world better because of our, you know, the strength that we’re gaining. And
then a part of working with our partner, where our partner has an opportunity
to collaborate in our healing and become a healer for us - and really, this is,
I love that part, I practice that part at home – is having that setting aside
sacred healing sessions with my beloved where either I’m the one that’s the
focus of healing or my beloved is, and we can say this is not just, you know,
slipping into sexuality, this is really saying, “How can I be here for you?
You’re guiding this journey. What feels right to you? Keep breathing. Check
into your body”, and that permission, that asking permission, because so often
under abuse, what’s been taken away is our choice, what’s been taken away is
our own understanding of our how our body works; our wants, our needs, our
limits and our boundaries. So, beautiful. I love that you’re bringing us these
steps. And as we’re coming to the close of this very quick half an hour, is
there anything else that you would tell people as, you know, resources or more
about how to get a hold of you or where in the country you work or how you
work?

Stephen Braveman: Certainly. I’m in Montere California,
central coast. And it’s very easy to find me. Just Google my name, Stephen
Braveman, b-r-a-v-e-m-a-n, and you’ll find my website, you’ll also find tons of
other things that’s not on my website about me and my work. And if you are
wanting to travel across the country for a tantra workshop, you’re more than welcome;
however, do keep in mind there are people in all different parts of the country
that can help out with these things. One good way to start is to look at the
local rape crisis center or sexual assault centers – they’re called different
things in different communities. Look at links on my site, look at links on
other peoples sites who teach tantra, who work with sexual abuse, and
definitely keep in mind, you don’t need to be suffering. If you are the
partner, going, “Hey, you know, this is making sense. I think this is about
what happened to my partner, but God, he or she won’t talk about it”, and it
can help also pave the way by maybe buying that book, Victims No Longer,
leaving it on the coffee table, taking a look at some brochures at a center; bring
them home, leave them in the bathroom. If it’s a man you want to reach, tape it
to the wall right behind the toilet; when he stands and pees he’ll read
anything. So definitely remember there is help, there is hope, you can do it,
and take the full journey. Make sure you finish the journey if you’ve been
working on this by healing the sexual issues with sexual healing.

Francesca Gentille

:
Thank you so much Stephen. It’s always a delight to have you here on the show.

Stephen Braveman: My pleasure.

Francesca Gentille

:
And I want to thank you our listening audience for being with us on this tender
journey of healing, of recovery, of bringing the sacred into all aspects of
sexuality. Thank you for being with us on Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing
You The Soul of Sex.